Chapter 4 In the shadows of Blood and ash

Chapter Four: In the Shadows of Blood and Ash

Aris didn't go to school the next day.

She sat at the edge of her bed, the sunlight creeping through her blinds like fingers trying to pry her open. The knife lay across her lap-her father's blade. Cold. Heavy. Real.

The same symbol that had appeared on her palm was etched into its hilt. And now, another shimmered faintly just beneath her wrist-angrier this time, pulsing like it had its own heartbeat.

She had tried to wash it off.

Tried to scrub it away.

But it wasn't ink. It was blood-deep.

Her father had once told her the world was more dangerous than it seemed. That monsters didn't hide under the bed-they wore smiles, walked the halls, and sometimes, kissed you like they meant it.

He never said he meant werewolves.

He never said vampires would dream her name like a prayer.

He never said she would be the thing they were all waiting for.

---

By nightfall, the silence of the house became suffocating.

She grabbed her hoodie and the knife, tucking it into her waistband, and slipped out the door.

The woods behind Ridgewood were thick and cold. Trees stood like sentries, and the wind spoke in languages she couldn't yet understand.

Her feet moved without thought, her body following something deeper-some pull inside her chest. She didn't know what she was looking for. Only that she had to move. Had to breathe. Had to not feel like prey.

Snap.

She froze.

A twig had broken behind her.

Her fingers curled around the hilt of the blade.

"Kai," she called into the dark, not sure why she expected him to be the one there.

Silence.

Then a shape moved between the trees.

It wasn't Kai.

The figure stepped forward slowly, boots crunching dead leaves, eyes glowing faintly red.

Not crimson.

Not furious.

A deeper red. The color of dying stars.

"You're following me now?" she asked, backing up instinctively.

"I never lost you," the vampire said softly.

It was the same man from her dream. Just as tall. Just as terrifying. But somehow... familiar.

"I have a name," he added. "You should know it before the others poison you with theirs."

She said nothing.

He smiled, slow and sharp. "Lucien."

She took another step back, heart racing.

"I don't care who you are."

"You will," Lucien said. "You always have."

He stepped forward again, and her hand went to the knife. She pulled it free and held it out between them.

"Stay back."

Lucien's eyes narrowed slightly. "Ah. Elias's blade."

Aris stiffened.

"He never told you what it really was, did he?" Lucien asked, circling her now like a predator. "He kept you blind. Ignorant. Even when the signs began to wake in you."

"I'm warning you-"

"You are marked by more than blood, Aris," he said, stopping in front of her. "You are fate's mistake and its masterpiece. And now... they all want to claim you."

"I belong to no one."

His eyes flickered, not with rage-something closer to sorrow.

"Not yet," he said. "But your time is running out."

And just like that, he vanished.

---

She didn't go home that night.

Instead, Aris climbed the old watchtower that overlooked the edge of Ridgewood Forest. It had been abandoned years ago, but the view reached beyond the tree line, over the hills, and to the dark horizon that seemed to stretch forever.

The wind was sharper up there. Free.

And that's where Kai found her.

"You shouldn't be alone out here," he said, stepping onto the platform with barely a sound.

"I'm never alone anymore," she muttered. "Even in my sleep."

Kai leaned on the railing beside her. "Lucien found you."

She nodded.

"I thought I could keep him away longer," Kai admitted. "But he's older than most of us. Smarter. And... he has his reasons."

Aris turned to him. "You said you were protecting me. But why? What do you really want, Kai?"

He didn't answer at first. The wind tossed his hair into his face, but he didn't move.

"I didn't ask for this fate either," he said finally. "I didn't want a mate chosen by blood and magic. I wanted a choice."

"And now?"

He looked at her-truly looked-and for the first time, Aris saw something raw behind his eyes.

"I want you to have that choice too," he said. "Even if it kills the rest of us."

---

Later, when Aris returned home, she found a letter slipped beneath her door.

No name. No handwriting. Just one line, written in clean black ink:

"You will choose, or the world will choose for you."

She burned it.

Then locked the door behind her.

Because Aris wasn't afraid of destiny anymore.

She was ready to fight it.